Artist-Artist Conversation
Monyee Chau + Alan Lau
January 2021
Alan: My father started his restaurant when Chinese food was this weird alien thing, in the 1950s. The menu was Egg Foo Young, Pork Fried Rice, Chop Suey, Chow Mein, and you had to have some ribs, steaks, and fries for those who didn't like Chinese food. All the waitresses were white women, and they wore these tacky red, fake-Chinese jackets.
I think it’s different from you; you grew up in the real deal, like in the community, whereas we were like a desert outpost.
Monyee: That’s really interesting to think about in terms of the privilege of having the opportunity to be authentic with your work. I have a lot of conversations about Chinatowns, and them being an entry-point and introduction as the ethnic ‘other’ to white Americans.
A lot of ethnic things have to, in some way, assimilate to be any position of survival in that economy, and I’ve never really had a chance to think about the dynamics of being a Chinese restaurant within Chinatown, and also being a Chinese restaurant outside of Chinatown.
Alan: It’s a different dynamic. For example, when my father was going to open his Chinese restaurant, he had to have a white friend from another town come to Paradise and sponsor him, tell the Chamber of Commerce, ‘This guy's okay.’
Alan: When I was coming up as an artist, I really wondered if there were other artists who came before me, and I was always interested in finding out who these Asian American artists were. At that time, there weren’t a lot of exhibitions and catalogues, and a lot of the names are not in books, so I just had to look in newspapers, and look in libraries, and do my own research, because I was hungry to know if there was a tradition of artists.
We don’t start from where we are, there’s always been someone before us. So I kind of made it my life’s work to track down the work of Asian American artists, or as much as I could find. [I would] look for catalogues of their shows and keep a file. Nowadays, it’s easy; you just go online, but back in those days you had to keep a file, and clip out newspaper stories.
The mainstream arts coverage was pretty sparse when trying to find Asian American artists. Gradually, when I went to college, I would meet some of these older artists, and it was quite a thrill to talk to them and find out their struggles and how they made their way in the art world. Nowaday, you can go online, and all of that stuff is pretty much readily available. There are a lot more serious books that you can read that have history, but when I was coming up, I was really hungry to know that there were people like me doing art.
Monyee: I feel like growing up, I had that same struggle of not seeing anyone who looked like me in my school curriculum, especially throughout college. I wanted to know that other Asians were making work about anything; it didn’t even have to be identity work —
Alan: Just art.
Monyee: — yeah, just art. I really feel like we’re starved that.
It’s funny to hear how that hasn’t changed too much. I think with internet access, it’s definitely easier, but it’s just funny that it’s not engrained into our practices and systems, obviously, for that to be shared.
I remember when I went to Taiwan, I got a chance to go to the museums. I was there with my mom, and I remember seeing, at the MoCA in Taipei, Taiwanese artists not hold back on anything. It felt so liberating to be in that space where, here’s a group of Tawianese people who were surrounded by Taiwanese art, and they just went so hard. The art was amazing, and it felt really different in terms of what I was told that I was capable of doing.
Monyee: I think that’s something that really needs to be addressed in terms of inaccessibility of galleries. And not just the ability for me to go into Pioneer Square and walk into a gallery, but also there’s a different feel with gallery spaces.
I had this conversation throughout school, in terms of why we feel that galleries aren’t open to everyone. I feel like families and people would rather walk into a museum that is a private space that you have to pay to walk into rather than galleries that are free for everyone to go and visit.
Alan: I think a lot of it is the attitude of some of the galleries or the people who work there.
Monyee: There’s definitely some elitism that happens in the art world, and I wish that wasn’t as prevalent.
Alan: It’s really important, accessibility. When I have shows, I always try to add extracurricular activities, because there’s gotta be more than one way to get somebody interested in art, besides just looking at an image on the wall.
I try to do poetry readings, art talks, and involve some of my friends who are dancers or musicians to come into the gallery to respond to the art in their way, because I think the more ways you can get people to enter into art, the better. There’s gotta be multiple ways that people can appreciate art, so you have to provide that.
Using the internet, for you, is one way to reach a lot of people who wouldn’t bother to walk into a gallery.
Alan: Sometimes you just have to take things into your own hands and try to put together little pop-up events, even though maybe ten people show up, or five people show up. I think people underestimate the power of art in society in general. For me, art represents the kind of spirit and soul of a community, and if you don't have the art component, you're missing a really big part of that culture.
Monyee: To add to that, art is a history marker. Arts are a commentary on the times, and I really believe that this is a way that we can record everything that has happened in that moment, and what we're feeling as a society.
I feel really amazed at how many parallels we have within our lives and the way that our art has been so influenced by our communities.
Alan: You have to forge your own identity within [art], and it's an endless long journey that probably ends when you die. You're always trying to find the essence of who you are through various means.
above: Alan Lau, lost in the orange grove, mixed media on rice paper, 12 x 8", 2020. Courtesy of ArtXchange Gallery.
background: Monyee Chau, digital painting, 2020